Lottery ticket buyers that buy a single lottery ticket, or a string or strip of such tickets, are faced with the problem of carefully removing the film or occluding layer from the face of each ticket, as by the slow manipulation of the rounded edges of a coin, or by the use of a pocket knife, or the like, so as to scrape off the film or surface layer from the ticket or tickets. This may damage one or more of the alphanumeric characters or numbers on a ticket substrate, and becomes a laborious task when a large number of strung together tickets are to be processed. There is need for a hand held device to greatly reduce such labor, and to enable quick and effective removal of the film from a single ticket, or from a string of interconnected tickets. There is also the need to catch and retain the material scraped off, so that it will not clutter and defile the surrounding area.
It is of course known that many lottery tickets include a backing of cardboard or other rigid stock material, with printed indicia thereon, and an opaque coating over some or all of the indicia. The purchaser paying money into the state is of course hoping that by scraping the ticket he or she will regain more money than he or she paid in. The state, however, is careful to minimize the fact that the odds against a given person winning any substantial amount of money in a lottery are several million to one.
Notwithstanding the fact of the enormous odds against winning, the population flocks to the grocery store, the service station, the all-night liquor store, the drug store, and every other conceivable kind of merchandising operation wherein lottery sales have become a major source of activity. As the frantic lottery ticket purchaser grasps his ticket to instant wealth, he is confronted with a real dilemma--how best to scrape the lottery ticket-
First of all, one must have an object with a slightly sharp edge. As mentioned earlier, coins are sometimes used, but these have a rounded edge and are often unsatisfactory. Pocket knives are sometimes used, but these tend to cut through the ticket, and may cut a finger as well. Nail files, credit card edges, razor blades and virtually every other conceivable kind of device with a sharp edge is used in the frantic race to scrape the opaque surface layer or covering from the face of the lottery ticket, so as hopefully to entitle the purchaser to instant riches.
Most or all of these removal methods are only moderately satisfactory. One great hazard involved in most of these methods lies in the fact that in the type of lottery ticket used by some states, if the number of the ticket, which is covered by the opaque covering, is disclosed by removing the opaque covering in that area, the lottery ticket becomes void. Thus, sadly, the dream of instant wealth might be cut asunder by a careless scrape-
Quite significant is the fact that the surface layer of many types of lottery tickets is slightly sticky, and prone to create an unsightly mess on a counter or table, and/or on the floor.
The present invention solves these problems and frees the ticket purchaser from the risk of destroying the validity of the lottery ticket, and provides a simple, low cost, efficient and effective means for scraping lottery tickets, and for disposing of the scraped material quite cleanly and conveniently.